Page 16 of Canadian Boyfriend

Had he hesitated because he thought I was going to be offended by a “normal sedan”? He had no idea what a step up in the world that would be for me, assuming “normal” meant it didn’t have plastic sheeting instead of glass in one of its rear windows, or an honest-to-God cassette deck.

“It’s… off-site at the moment.” He nodded kind of weirdly—as if agreeing with himself?—and added, “I’m getting it tuned up.”

I wondered if he was hesitant in talking about this “normal sedan” because it had been his dead wife’s car. Sarah Kowalski’scar. I was desperately curious about her in a way I hadn’t been when she’d been hanging around the studio. I had not found much about her on the internet beyond the fact that she was from Chicago and had been thirty-two when she died. There was some coverage of her wedding with Mike Martin in the Chicago media, but other than that, just obituaries. I remembered Sarah as a pretty, dark-haired, quiet woman. She’d never been in our faces like some of the other moms. I wished I’d paid more attention.

Inside, Olivia was in the mudroom loving on a dog who paused in enjoying its belly rubs to happy-bark at Mike Martin. It started wiggling its torso, and Olivia turned it over, which was when I noticed this wasn’t your average dog. “Is that… a bulldog on wheels?”

“It sure is. Aurora, meet Earl 9.” Earl 9’s legs were strapped into a small wheelchair-type contraption, and once he was upright, he zoomed away after Olivia, front legs pumping and wheels rolling. “When I played in the WHL, my team was the Thompson Bulldogs,” Mike Martin said. “They had an elderly mascot who was ready to retire, and I took him.” He chuckled. “That Earl and I had bonded.”

“ThatEarl?”

“Yeah, that was Earl 7. This is Earl 9. The team mascot is always named Earl. I guess because it’s always an English bulldog? They call the dog the Earl of Thompson. Earl 9’s career was cut short when he was a puppy—he got hit by a car and was paralyzed. They couldn’t find anyone locally to take him, so they called a certain alum known to be a sucker.” He smirked self-deprecatingly. “But don’t worry about him. He goes where Olivia goes. So he’ll be at Lauren and Ivan’s when I’m traveling.”

Well, if that wasn’t the cutest story. “You actually call him Earl 9?”

“Yep.” He shrugged.

Inside, the house was stunning. The main area, which was an airy, open-concept kitchen-dining-living situation, was full of warm wooden finishes. A windowed sunroom where Mike Martin installed Olivia with an iPad overlooked the lake. “What can I get you to drink?” he asked as he pulled a tray of bratwurst out of the fridge. “Wine? Beer?”

I hesitated. A cold glass of white wine sounded good, but I didn’t want him to think I’d be drinking when I was here, given that my job was to drive his kid around.

“Say yes if you’re at all inclined. I made a deal with myself when my wife died that I was only ever going to drink socially. I don’t drink on the road, and here it’s usually just me and Olivia. So I rarely get to have a beer.”

“So I’m your excuse to drink beer.”

He shrugged and did the eye-twinkling thing, zapping me with those green kryptonite lasers. And ugh, thedimple.

“I’d love a glass of white wine, thanks.” I should probably have opted for beer because how wasteful would it be for him to open a bottle of wine so I could have one glass? I was conditioned to be sensitive to people making outlays on my behalf—thanks, Mom. But I had noticed an undercounter wine fridge, and honestly, after visiting the garage, I didn’t think I needed to worry about this guy’s finances.

“Any preference as to kind? I know nothing about wine. You want to come have a look?”

“Surprise me.”

He poured a glass and handed it to me, picked up his beer and the tray, and hitched his head for me to follow him. “Olivia!”he called as we crossed the living room toward a back door. “Aurora and I are going outside.” He paused and listened to the silence. “Acknowledge me. Where will I be if you need me?”

“Outside!” she shouted, and the edge was back in her voice.

He rolled his eyes as we stepped out onto a deck. We were on the top tier of an impressive, multilayered structure that climbed down the house. There were little seating areas on various tiers. “Wow. Cool deck.”

“Thanks. I built it myself.”

Of course. I almost rolled my eyes.

“Barbecue’s down there.” He nodded for me to descend to a ground-floor patio. “Or I guess I should saygrill. In Canada we call it a barbecue, and the act of cooking on it is barbecuing, whereas when I say that here, people think I’m talking about a style of food—you know, like southern barbecue? I had a lot of funny “Who’s on First?” conversations when I first went to North Carolina.”

I wondered if I’d ever had my Mike use the wrong terminology when I’d been talking about him at school.

“If you sit on the chesterfield, you’ll have the best view of the lake. Sorry, sofa. Or I guess couch, as Minnesotans seem to say?”

“Are we having a United Nations vocabulary moment? Allow me to sit on the chesterfield and watch you barbecue our dinner. Who knew Canada was so different?” Apparently not I, who had done actual research on the subject.Canadian History for Dummieshad sat on my bookshelf next toHockey for Dummies.

I should tell him. Or at least probe a bit. Ask if he’d ever been to Minnesota before he joined the Lumberjacks. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was too old to have been the guy atthe mall that day, I would have sworn it was him. But itcouldn’thave been. He’d told me he’d only played the one year of high school hockey, and Mall Mike had definitely been too old to be a freshman.

But… how many hockey players from Manitoba named Mike with missing teeth and crazy green eyes were there in the world?

Round and round I went. I told myself to cut it out. I had something else to tell Mike Martin tonight. One bombshell at a time.

Mike Martin lit the grill/barbecue and started loading it with way more brats than three humans could possibly eat, even accounting for one of them being a hulking professional athlete. I took the opportunity to study the house, which had looked modest from the front only because it was oriented toward the lake. It was built into the land such that it was both taller and wider here than on the road side. The whole house had two stories, and about half of it had a third, lower level.

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